Because of how the cinematic calendar is laid out, it tends to be that many of the best film performances come in the second half of the year. Studios and the distributors just love to get in on the end-of-year awards season race, and the best way to do that is to release the Oscar contenders in the usual peak September to December period.
This means that, come the end of 2016, this list of 10 Best Performances will undoubtedly look very different. The big awards movies complete with attention-grabbing, Oscar-baiting acting – primed to bag some silverware – are mostly all still yet to come.
That doesn’t mean that the year so far has been bereft of great turns, however. Already there have been standout performances, in smaller movies that never had the money to get in on the awards race, and in genre efforts that normally don’t get much love come trophy season.
So, on that note, here are the 10 best performances of 2016 so far.